Chester Opera House | |
---|---|
Alternative names | ChesterOpera |
General information | |
Type | Cinema and Theatre |
Address | 1001-3 State Street, Chester, IL 62233 |
Town or city | Chester, Pennsylvania |
Country | USA |
Coordinates | 37°54′44.1″N89°49′24.4″W / 37.912250°N 89.823444°W |
Other information | |
Seating capacity | 650 |
Chester Opera House was a cinema and theatre which showed both movies and live stage performances in Chester, Illinois, USA. Elzie Segar, the creator of Popeye, worked there from the age of twelve. [1] The Chester Opera House was built in the late 19th century. It was converted to a movie house in about 1920s by its owner, Bill Schuchert.
Chester Opera House was listed in the 1897-98 edition of the Julius Cahn Official Theatrical Guide, an annual for roadshow managers. The seating capacity was reported as 650. [2]
Opera House was managed by Herman Wiebusch and Edw. Tindall and the range of ticket prices was 25 cents to 50 cents. The proscenium opening was 18 feet x 9 feet (width x height) and the depth of stage was 18 feet. The theatre was on the second floor and had electric illumination.[ citation needed ]
It was closed as a movie theatre in 1931, the old Opera House housed a museum and Popeye-themed gift shop. [3]
Current owners, Debbie and Mike Brooks bought and renovated the Opera House into the Spinach Can Collectables gift shop and Chester Opera House museum back in 1994. [4]
As of 2021, it is in use as an Spinach Can Collectables and antique store on the 1st floor and the former auditorium on the 2nd floor has been converted into apartments. [3]
Chester is a city in and the county seat of Randolph County, Illinois, United States, on a bluff above the Mississippi River. The population was 7,640 at the 2020 census. It lies 61 miles (98 km) south of St. Louis, Missouri.
Bluto, at times known as Brutus, is a cartoon and comics character created in 1932 by Elzie Crisler Segar as a one-time character, named "Bluto the Terrible", in his Thimble Theatre comic strip. Bluto made his first appearance on September 12 of that year. Fleischer Studios adapted him the next year (1933) to be the main antagonist of their theatrical Popeye animated cartoon series.
Elzie Crisler Segar, known by the pen name E. C. Segar, was an American cartoonist best known as the creator of Popeye, a pop culture character who first appeared in 1929 in Segar's comic strip Thimble Theatre.
Marcus Loew was an American business magnate and a pioneer of the motion picture industry who formed Loew's Theatres and the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studio (MGM).
The State Theatre is a movie theater in Traverse City, Michigan. In its current iteration, it is operated by the Traverse City Film Festival, and presents a year-round schedule of film and live performances.
The Winter Gardens is a large entertainment complex in Blackpool, Lancashire, England, which includes a theatre, ballroom and conference facilities. Opened in 1878, it is a Grade II* listed building, operated by Blackpool Entertainment Company Limited on behalf of Blackpool Council, which purchased the property from Leisure Parcs Ltd as part of a £40 million deal in 2010.
The Civic Theatre of Allentown, also known as the Nineteenth Street Theatre, is the oldest cinema in Allentown, Pennsylvania. The theater opened on September 17, 1928. It hosts live theater, educational programs, and screens art house films. In July 1957, the property was purchased by Allentown's Civic Little Theatre. Since then, stage productions have been performed at the theater. In 1994 the company officially changed its name to the Civic Theatre of Allentown. Its building on 19th Street was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2024.
The Monroe Avenue Commercial Buildings, also known as the Monroe Block, is a historic district located along a block-and-a-half stretch at 16-118 Monroe Avenue in Detroit, Michigan, just off Woodward Avenue at the northern end of Campus Martius. The district was designated a Michigan State Historic Site in 1974 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975. The thirteen original buildings were built between 1852 and 1911 and ranged from two to five stories in height. The National Theatre, built in 1911, was the oldest surviving theatre in Detroit, a part of the city's original theatre district of the late 19th century, and the sole surviving structure from the original Monroe Avenue Commercial Buildings historic period.
Pike's Opera House, later renamed the Grand Opera House, was a theater in New York City on the northwest corner of 8th Avenue and 23rd Street, in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. It was constructed in 1868, at a cost of a million dollars, for distiller and entrepreneur Samuel N. Pike (1822–1872) of Cincinnati. The building survived in altered form until 1960 as an RKO movie theater, after which it was replaced by part of Penn South, an urban renewal housing development.
Popeye the Sailor is a fictional cartoon character created by Elzie Crisler Segar. The character first appeared on January 17, 1929, in the daily King Features comic strip Thimble Theatre. The strip was in its tenth year when Popeye made his debut, but the one-eyed sailor quickly became the lead character, and Thimble Theatre became one of King Features' most popular properties during the 1930s. Following Segar's death in 1938, Thimble Theatre was continued by several writers and artists, most notably Segar's assistant Bud Sagendorf. The strip continues to appear in first-run installments on Sundays, written and drawn by R. K. Milholland. The daily strips are reprints of old Sagendorf stories.
The State Theatre is an historic theatre in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. It is one of four restored theatres in the Hennepin Theatre District. It is one of four restored theaters on Hennepin Avenue, along with the Orpheum Theatre, the Pantages Theatre, and the Shubert Theatre.
The Castle Square Theatre (1894–1932) in Boston, Massachusetts, was located on Tremont Street in the South End. The building existed until its demolition in 1933. The theatre was the Boston home of Henry W. Savage's Castle Square Opera Company, a touring opera company which had theaters in other cities like Chicago and New York City, but took its name from the Boston theatre.
Piper's Opera House is an historic performing arts venue in Virginia City, Storey County, Nevada in the United States. Piper's served as a training facility in 1897 for heavyweight boxing champion Gentleman Jim Corbett, in preparation for his title bout with Bob Fitzsimmons. The current structure was built by entrepreneur John Piper in 1885 to replace his 1878 opera house that had burned down. The 1878 venue, in turn, had been to replace Piper's 1863 venue which was destroyed by the 1875 Great Fire in Virginia City. Mark Twain spoke from the original Piper's stage in 1866, and again a century later in the third venue, as portrayed by Hal Holbrook in his one-man play Mark Twain Tonight! A lynch mob hung a victim from the first venue's rafters in 1871. American theatrical producer David Belasco was stage manager at the second opera house before moving to New York City. Piper's opera houses played host to Shakespearean thespians such as Edwin Booth. Musical performers Lilly Langtry, Al Jolson and John Philip Sousa once performed here. In 1940, Errol Flynn auctioned off historic Piper memorabilia from the opera house stage, during a live NBC broadcast that coincided with the premiere of Flynn's new movie Virginia City.
B.F. Keith's Theatre (1894–1928) in Boston, Massachusetts, was a vaudeville playhouse run by B.F. Keith. It sat across from Boston Common in the city's theatre district, with an entrance on Tremont Street and another on Washington Street. Personnel included Keith, E.F. Albee and H.E. Gustin. Virgilio Tojetti painted some of the interior decorations. In 1939, the theater was converted to a movie theater named the Normandie.
The Grand Opera House (est.1888) of Boston, Massachusetts, was a theatre in the South End. Architect George Snell designed the 2,600-seat building on Washington Street. Managers and proprietors included Proctor & Mansfield, A.H. Dexter, George W. Magee, and Stair & Wilbur. Performances included Glyn's Three Weeks.
The Bronx Opera House is a former theater, part of the Subway Circuit, now converted into a boutique hotel in the Melrose neighborhood of the Bronx, New York City. It was designed by George M. Keister and built in 1913 at 436 East 149th Street on the site of Frederick Schnaufer's stable. It was one of several theaters to come into the area that became known as the Hub. It was formally dedicated on opening night Saturday, August 30, 1913.
The Lafayette Square Opera House was an opera house built in 1895, at 717 Madison Place, NW in Washington D.C. It was dedicated on 30 September 1895 by Lillian Russell, one of the most well known actresses of the time, who was there to perform in Tzigane. Reginald De Koven, composer of the opera, led the orchestra at Russell's request. In 1905 it was purchased by the Shuberts and David Belasco and was renamed the Belasco Theatre. The theatre was acquired by the US federal government and used as a warehouse until World War II, when it was operated by the American Theatre Wing as a Stage Door Canteen. During the Korean War, it was used by the United Services Organization to entertain troops. The theater was razed in 1964.
Abbey's Park Theatre or Abbey's New Park Theatre was a playhouse at 932 Broadway and 22nd Street in what is now the Flatiron District of Manhattan in New York City. It opened as the New Park Theatre in 1874, and was in use until 1882 when it burned down and was never rebuilt as a theatre.
The history of theaters in Chehalis, Washington started in 1886 with the construction of a mixed-use opera house and town hall, followed by the Tynan Opera House in 1889. The city experienced more than a 50-year stretch of the build or opening of over a dozen theaters and movie houses in the city, culminating with the opening of the Pix Theater in 1938. No further theater was built or established until the opening of a multi-screen cinema at a local shopping center in 1982.